I walk the beach several times a week and this morning I was so taken by this beautiful setting of sand buckets and shovels awaiting the children to arrive. The buckets are empty and ready to be filled so that the children may create wonderful sand castles and sculptures.
What came to mind for me was a metaphor of empty buckets and shovels representing the emptiness of a child’s possibilities.
We have a tremendous responsibility and opportunity as adults to fill the buckets and shovels for children with hope, optimism and unconditional love. We can model this with our daily actions and not teach them judgment and separation.
We have the moments in their lives to impact them with teaching them the value of life and nature. We have the experiences to teach them about life changes and grief and what really matters in a lifetime.
Children model the adults so if they hurt, destroy and kill the creatures unnecessarily the children grow up to do the same.
We can admire them by holding a space for them that we shalt not kill – we shalt not kill their creative spirits and be determined to keep them held back in any form.
Children around us are listening and they are attentive. We can show them that language can be shared with class and dignity without profanity. There is a new language arising in our culture and it is the language that our grandparents before us would have never mentioned out loud let alone communicated.
We can show them that challenges can be met and addressed without blame or victimization.
We can prove to them that tough times lead to great times by revealing to them our own journey not through words alone but through actions.
We can reveal to them that how you do small things is how you do everything and they do matter deeply to us as a major role in our hearts and in our society.
We can show them that none of us are really in control but the true arrival place in life for real happiness is trust.
They trust us to fill their sand buckets and shovels with possibilities.
How will we do it?
Author – Temple Hayes
For more inspiration and information: http://templehayes.org/
